


Holding It Together

by PepperF



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Darkest Timeline, Gen, Suicide Attempt, but they're not evil yet, the major character death is the one from the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5712595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperF/pseuds/PepperF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Filling in the blanks of what happened between the apartment catching fire and the ep tag on Remedial Chaos Theory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding It Together

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to Bethany, as always, for reassuring me that this did actually work as a ficlet (see, this is what happens when I try to write meta), and for polishing up and sending it out to play! 
> 
> Also, this is angsty and doesn't really end happily. The show fixed all that, in the end, so I didn't have to.

It's when they get to the hospital and start unloading ambulances (they had to call a second one for Troy, because the first was full) that Shirley first notices something's up with Annie. Shirley and Britta had followed by car, because Annie refused to be parted from either Jeff or... Pierce (he's still 'Pierce' in their heads, he's not an it, not 'the body', not yet), and Abed went with Troy because they didn't need a meltdown on their hands, on top of everything else. The only thing is, Shirley's starting to think Abed isn't the one they need to worry about. Annie is quiet. Too quiet. And deathly pale. And the rocking – that's never a good sign.

She sends Britta to get coffee, and sits down next to the girl in the waiting room. "Annie, sweetie, are you okay?"

She winces, then, expecting a look, an explosion. _No, of course I'm not okay! Our friend just died, and two of our other friends are in critical condition!_ But Annie doesn't even look up.

"My fault," she mutters. "My fault, my fault."

"It's not your fault," Shirley says firmly – but Annie isn't listening.

"My fault, my fault, my fault. I shouldn't have bought that gun. I shouldn't have tripped. My fault, my fault, my fault."

"Annie—"

" _My fault._ "

Shirley sighs, too weary and heartsick to argue. She doesn’t have the energy to fight Annie's fierce determination to control everything right now. If she wants to take on the weight of the world, maybe Shirley should just let her.

She stands up and walks away. She needs to phone Andre. She needs to know her babies are safe. She needs to talk to someone – anyone – who isn't in the study group right now.

When she comes back, after a brief, unsatisfactory conversation – Andre was at the grocery store, the boys were acting up, Ben was screaming, and she couldn't bring herself to shout her news over the phone, above the noise, so she merely said that there had been an accident, she was okay but she was going to be home late, to which Andre responded with an irritated 'oh, great' – she finds Britta sitting next to Annie, trying to get her to drink some coffee. She means well, but she's still high, so her persuasion methods are clumsy.

"Come on, Annie, take the cup. Why are you being like this? Just have a drink! You'll feel better!"

"Britta," says Shirley, sharply.

Britta looks up, and her face is tearstained. And Shirley feels her heart break just a little bit more.

"I could use a cup of coffee, if Annie doesn't want it," she suggests, gently.

Britta eagerly gives her the cup. "It's tea, but I put two sugars in it," she says. "To help with the shock."

Shirley nods – hot, sweet tea actually sounds pretty good right now. She sits down on the other side of Annie, and waits for news.

\---

Jeff's burns were terrible, and an infection has set in, and the doctors are starting to talk worst-case scenarios. Shirley is praying he won't lose his arm – hasn't he paid enough already for his past sins? He's on a lot of morphine, and spends most of his time unconscious, but it's probably better this way; she has a feeling he wouldn't handle any of this particularly well if he were awake, and Lord knows they don't need anything else to set Annie off. Abed has been bad enough – they all know he's worried about Troy, but that doesn't give him the right to be scaring Britta and Annie. Once again, Shirley had to be the grown-up, and tell him he's not to come into Jeff's room unless he can be considerate. The last time he started talking about Captain Hook, it took them two hours to get Annie to come out of the bathroom.

She's worried about Annie. Well, she's worried about Troy and Jeff, too, but unlike them, Annie isn't under the care of trained professionals. Shirley is starting to wonder if maybe she should be. The only thing that seems to calm her down is when she's asked to sit quietly and hold Jeff's (undamaged) hand. Shirley wants to talk to someone about it, but there's only Britta and Abed. Abed is Abed, and Britta... well, she's been trying her best to help, but she's smoking a lot, both legally and not, so she's not really very reliable. There's no one else who truly understands the delicate balance of their group. Andre has been supportive, though. At least she knows she can go home to him, and he'll let her put her feet up, bring her a large glass of wine, and talk to her about the boys to take her mind off things.

To top it off, Pierce left them all a bequest of a considerable sum of money each. She ought to be grateful – and she is, because it turns out that neither Jeff nor Troy had health insurance – but Annie freaked out (of course), claiming that she couldn't possibly take Pierce's money when she had his blood on her hands. It triggered another round of her demanding to be charged, despite Officer Cackowski's assurances that no one thought she was guilty, that the weapon was being carried perfectly legally and it was just a terrible accident. There's even footage to prove it: Abed and Troy had set up cameras in the apartment, so the whole ordeal was caught on film. Shirley tried to sit through it once, with the police, on behalf of the group, but when they got to the part where Jeff starts screaming, she got up and walked out. There are some things that even she's not strong enough to handle.

\---

It seems God has another plan for Jeff, because, despite her prayers, the poor boy is going to lose his arm – his right, so it's a mercy that he's left-handed. No one has taken it well. Troy keeps crying, but it comes out as a strange, strained sound, which sets Britta off, and Abed doesn't know how to deal with all this emotion so he keeps going on and on about some video game, and Annie…

Shirley has tried to have patience, really she has, but she can't keep doing this. She has one friend in recovery, one friend who hasn't been lucid for long enough to learn that he's going to lose his right arm, one friend whose funeral was last week, not to mention three small boys and a husband who thinks she should be getting back to her family by now. She just can't deal with any more of Annie's hysterics. This stubborn refusal to cope is pushing Shirley past the boundaries of good friendship – and she does regret slapping Annie, she _does_ , and she apologized straight away, but what else was she supposed to do? Clearly no one else was going to step in. Annie's not sleeping or eating properly – she won't even touch one of the brownies that Shirley baked specially. All she wants to do is curl up in a chair in the corner of Jeff's room and cry silently, until Shirley just wants to shake her.

Anyway, Annie is going to have to do something different next week, after the operation, because Jeff will probably be in the ICU for a day or two, according to the doctors, and they won't be allowed to sit with him. It's not like he's going to notice, so there was no need for Annie to start getting so desperate about it – as though her presence would make any difference. She doubts Jeff has heard anything anyone's said to him (so no change there).

She hates feeling like this, she really does. She doesn't want to be so mad at Annie, and part of her knows that it's because she has all these other feelings – grief, fear, guilt, resentment, to name but a handful – boiling around inside her, and Annie presents an irresistibly tempting target to let some of them out. She recognizes that's bad, that's the side of her that was a bully, and she's trying to find a way to bottle everything up and get herself under control again. Maybe she just needs a break, some time to herself. But then she's got her kids, and no matter how much she adores them, a tiny part of her misses the days when she had no responsibilities, when she could just let off steam without worrying about anyone else. She needs that. Maybe she could get Andre to babysit, and go out with Britta one night? It'd be like old times.

\---

Shirley wonders if guilt can really be transferred, like a load that's too heavy to carry. Well, a certain Someone did it, of course, and she's not comparing herself to Him, but she does feel like she's somehow received more than her share. She ought to be humble, to accept her fate, but she's never been very good at that.

It was Abed who found Annie – praise the Lord. He got her to the hospital, they pumped her stomach, and now she's in a secure ward, awaiting psychiatric assessment. Shirley's emotions are bouncing between relief and guilt – relief that at last someone else, someone _official_ is taking care of Annie, and guilt that she didn't deal with it herself. How did she not see that poor Annie was this bad, when Abed – Abed, who sometimes still needs to have sarcasm pointed out! – apparently worked it out? She feels like she's letting them all down. Troy can't speak – just one more tragedy that's gone almost unnoticed among those that have piled up on their little group, the boy had a _lovely_ singing voice – but he looked so devastated when Abed told them the news. Every time she thinks she can't feel any worse, something else seems to happen.

Jeff made it through surgery, so that's one thing for which she can be grateful. When he woke up, though, his first order of business was to ban them all from his hospital room. None of them have seen him since before the operation. Lord knows he has a right to be angry, but shutting his friends out isn't going to fix anything. She's half-tempted to storm in there and yell at him to let them in, because it would be such a relief, she's been so worried about him, and now she's worried about Annie, and a part of her wants him to give a Winger speech and just _fix everything_ – but that's not fair. None of this is his fault. None of this is anyone's fault. Anyway, a speech wouldn't fix this mess, even if he were in the right frame of mind to give it. So she bites her tongue and reins in her frustration. It's so hard, though, when it feels like everything is falling apart around her.

It's odd, but she wishes Pierce were here. Not only because that would take away Annie's main source of guilt, but also because she knows he would break the tension, do something incredibly inappropriate that made it impossible for them to take him seriously, and by extension themselves. She never thought – literally never, _ever_ thought – that she would miss Pierce. But she does. She raises a glass to his memory, most nights. He'd probably appreciate that, the old coot.

\---

The doctors have decided to keep Annie under observation for a while. When Shirley is allowed to visit her, Annie just lays there and doesn't respond to her greeting, although her eyes are open. Her face is turned towards the frosted window, and she looks so desolate that Shirley feels her frustration and anger burning away. All that's left behind is worry.

"Oh, Annie," she says gently, sitting down in the chair beside the bed.

Annie lets Shirley take her hand, but makes no move to respond. They sit in silence for a while. It's actually quite restful.

"Everyone sends their love," she says. No response. "Oh, Troy has had his first fitting of a new voicebox. It's… very good."

It's not: it's strange and electronic, and he's struggling with it. But Abed is actually helping. Shirley wouldn't have thought that Troy would want to watch a silent movie marathon (from _Metropolis_ to _The Artist_ , via _The General_ , _Un Chien Andalou_ , _Mr Bean_ , and of course _Silent Movie_ ), but those two boys are on their own wavelength.

Maybe, when Annie gets out, Abed can find her the perfect movie mix to put everything into perspective. That would be nice.

"Jeff is doing better," she tries. Annie's fingers twitch, and Shirley continues, encouraged. "The doctors say he's started rehab. He'll be pleased about that, I'm sure. He's still not talking to us," she adds – but then brightens. "But in a way that's a good sign! We all know what Jeffrey is like about dealing with his problems, and this is exactly what we would expect, so that means he's still himself... right?" Even as she says it, she knows how it sounds: like her optimism is being stretched to the breaking point. Probably because that's exactly what's happening.

But it doesn't matter, because Annie doesn't answer anyway.

She takes a sip of coffee, finding courage in the strong, warm flavor (she's spiked it with just a splash of whiskey, because she knew how hard this was going to be).

"Britta and Abed are…" Well, they're not doing much of anything, at the moment. Like her, they're stuck in the same limbo of college, home, hospital. They still meet up for study periods during the day, but the sessions are strange and sad, and Shirley is coming to dread them. "They're keeping busy. Britta has decided to get a blue streak in her hair, for some ungodly reason, and… oh! She talked to the dean, and in view of the circumstances, he's agreed that you'll be given a grade based on the work you've done so far, for all of your classes. Isn't that nice?"

Annie turns her head at this, and Shirley beams at her – Annie has always loved getting good grades, so maybe this has gotten through to her at last? Annie's expression doesn't shift, but her eyes slowly fill with tears. Shirley's smile falters.

"Sweetie? It – it means you'll be getting an A, maybe even an A+ in all your classes. And you don't even have to do any more work... unlike the rest of us." That last bit wasn't very nice. She rallies. "So there's no pressure, you know? You can rest up, until you feel better!"

Annie remains perfectly still.

"A-annie?"

The whisper is almost inaudible. "I've ruined everything."

"Oh, honey, no!" She clutches Annie's hand and leans closer. "It's not your fault!"

Annie's eyes are running over her face, as if searching for something. She frowns for just a second, and then glances down at the coffee cup in Shirley's hand. And then the tears overspill, and she turns away again, giving one breathy sob and then falling silent again. The only movement is the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

Shirley is confused and anxious, and for some strange reason she feels ashamed. She clutches the cup more tightly, searching for the right words.

They sit in silence until the orderly comes to usher her out.

\---

Andre is moving out, with the boys. He's taking them to stay with his parents. "Just for a while," he says. "Just until you get yourself back on track."

Shirley tries to tell him that everything is getting better. Troy is learning to speak again, and is coming back to classes, and Jeff is up and around and has – grudgingly – agreed to attend a study group meeting. Annie isn't coming out any time soon, so her doctors say, and Pierce is still gone, but the rest of the group is coming back together.

"Yeah," says Andre, gravely. "That's not what I meant."

Shirley doesn't know what he means. She doesn't want to know. Her head aches, and everything is hard, and it's too difficult to think, these days.

"Listen, I'm gonna say this because I care, okay? And not just because of our boys. I care about _you_ , and Shirley… you're drinking too much. You need to stop."

Drinking too much? Drinking too much? What she needs is to drink MORE, so she can forget this crazy talk, and his stupid FACE.

When he and the boys are gone, she wanders around the empty house. Eventually she curls up on Eli's bed, in the room he shares with his little brother. For the first time since this started, she truly feels alone.

And, finally, she lets go.


End file.
